Liberty Street by Dianne Warren Read Free Book Online Page A

can’t fall into her the way she wants to, and she stops herself and is shy again and doesn’t know what to do, so she blurts out, “How was the drive?” the way her father might.
    Her mother laughs. “How was the drive? Is that all you have to say? Not, I’m glad you’re back and I’m so happy to see you?”
    Frances doesn’t like being laughed at. She starts to cry. Her mother puts her bags on the ground and says, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop your wailing. I’ve only been gone a few days. Come here and give us a proper hug.”
    Instead, Frances runs back to the caragana hedge, where she discovers that Marilyn has gone missing. She crawls around on her hands and knees in the muddy hedge until she finds her, and then she takes her back to the hay shed. The mother gives Marilyn a couple of licks on the head, but then she wanders off, which Frances thinks is mean, but she knows cats do that when the kittens get big.
    When Frances finally goes to the house, her jeans are so muddy she has to take them off at the door. Her father iswatching the news and something is cooking on the stove, and it’s as though her mother had never left. Frances pulls out one of the chrome chairs to sit at the table, but it tips over and makes a loud bang as it hits the floor, and her mother says, “Those darn tippy chairs.” Frances can feel the dark building inside her—a storm, a big angry tornado. She hates the chrome chairs, hates the way you always have to think about how you move them away from the table, always have to be careful. Other people’s chairs don’t tip over, even when you’re sitting on them and not being careful, and she gives the chair a good kick, and then another, and before she knows it she’s shouting about how she hates these stupid chairs and why can’t her mother once and for all buy some new ones so they don’t all break their necks.
    Her mother stands staring at her, the stew ladle frozen in her hand.
    â€œHey, hey, hey,” her father says, getting up from his chair.
    Her mother puts the ladle in the pot. “Okay,” she says. “You’re mad.”
    Frances stops kicking and says, “You can bet that Kitty Wells doesn’t have chairs like these.”
    â€œKitty Wells?” her mother says. “What does Kitty Wells have to do with this?”
    â€œPick up the chair, Frances,” her father says. “There’s no point taking it out on a chair. They may be stupid, but they’re the only ones we have.”
    Frances picks up her chair and sits on it, still in her socks and underwear because she’s taken off her muddy jeans.
    â€œAren’t you cold?” her mother asks.
    â€œNo,” Frances says. “I’m boiling.”
    After that, her mother puts the meal on the table andthey all eat in silence. At bedtime, Frances wants to sleep in her parents’ bed, but they make her go back to her own. Her mother reads aloud a chapter from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz , which means it’s not an ordinary night, and then she closes the book and says, “Nashville? Honestly, Frances, don’t you think if I were going somewhere that far away, I’d just go back to England?” She must have seen the look on Frances’s face, because she adds, “Oh, don’t you dare start worrying about that. I’m home now and I’m not going anywhere. Do you understand? Tell me you do so we can all sleep tonight.”
    Frances nods, but that’s not good enough and her mother makes her say it out loud.
    â€œNo one is going to Nashville or back to England,” Frances says.
    â€œRight,” says her mother. “No one is going anywhere.” And that’s that. Out goes the light.
    But oh, Frances would love to hear what her parents are talking about. She climbs out of bed and opens her door just a crack—just enough to hear—and there’s her